McCain's Land Swap Deja Vu; Latest Allegations Not McCain's First Land Swap Controversy
Latest allegations are not McCain's first land swap controversy
Published on May 9, 2008 - 10:56:45 AM

By: Center for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, D.C. May 9, 2008 - Republican John McCain's controversial 2005 land swap deal, reported today by The Washington Post, is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation reported by the Center for Public Integrity in its book The Buying of the President 2000.

The current reports allege that McCain pushed for a land swap deal that benefits one of his top campaign bundlers. The legislation, which passed in November 2005, will allow an Arizona rancher to trade remote grassland and forest for property that is ready for development - a move that the Audubon Society described as the largest in Arizona's history.

The ranch owner, Fred Ruskin, hired SunCor Development, which is owned by longtime McCain supporter Steven A. Betts, to build as many as 12,000 homes on the property. Betts has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive nominee, but claimed there is "absolutely no" connection between his contributions and the land swap deal.

The McCain campaign said Betts did not discuss the arrangement with the senator and "every land exchange bill introduced by Senator McCain has been written with the highest regard for the public interest."

The Buying of the President 2000 unveiled McCain's involvement in a similar land swap arrangement to benefit Del Webb Corporation, a homebuilder company whose executives and employees contributed about $56,000 to his campaign.

Del Webb Corporation proposed exchanging some of its land for a 4,000-acre tract near the Red Rock National Conservation Area, a scenic stretch of desert featuring seasonal springs and clusters of Joshua trees 15 miles west of Las Vegas. But the plan hit a brick wall when the U.S. House approved legislation to expand the Red Rock National Conservation Area to include the acreage the company wanted.

One of the company's lobbyists, Donald Moon, a burly former prosecutor with ties to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, tried to get the bill's sponsors to exclude the land that Del Webb wanted from Red Rock, but nothing came of his efforts. He then turned to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. He knew McCain would help, for over the years, Del Webb had helped McCain. The company's executives and employees, in fact, have given McCain at least $56,535 in campaign contributions, making Del Webb his No. 7 career patron.

And help McCain did. He placed a "hold" on the legislation (through a letter of notification to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole), thus stalling it indefinitely.

Read the Center's entire report here.

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